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Thursday, January 7, 2016

Series of sexual assaults, robberies attributed to "men of Arab or North African origin" fuels debate on Germany's ability to integrate large numbers of migrants • "Whoever won't accept our rules for living together can have no place here," says official.

A police car passes the
central railway station in Cologne, Germany, Tuesday

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Photo credit: AP

A string of sex assaults and robberies during
New Year's Eve celebrations in Germany has fueled debate about the
country's ability to integrate large numbers of migrants, after police
said the men who targeted dozens of women in the western city of Cologne
appeared to be of "Arab or North African origin."

Political leaders including Chancellor Angela
Merkel condemned the attacks, though many also warned against hasty
conclusions about the perpetrators. But to some Germans, already uneasy
about the million asylum seekers their country took in last year, the
incident seemed to confirm simmering fears.

"Is this the 'cosmopolitan and colorful'
Germany that Merkel wished for?" asked Frauke Petry, leader of the
nationalist party Alternative for Germany.

Petry's party, known by its German acronym
AfD, has called for a clampdown on the number of asylum seekers allowed
into the country, a sentiment shared among a growing number of
supporters in Merkel's own center-right bloc.

"It's unacceptable that women are sexually
molested and robbed by young migrants on the streets and public squares
of German cities at night," said Andreas Scheuer, general secretary of
the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian wing of Merkel's party.

"Whoever won't accept our rules for living
together, including respect for women, can have no place in our society
here in Germany," Scheuer said. His party has called for a cap of
200,000 asylum seekers in Germany a year, a demand its lawmakers are
likely to repeat at a meeting with Merkel on Wednesday.

Others in Germany cautioned against tying the
refugee question to the issue of street crime when the full facts of the
incident are not known yet.

"It's completely improper ... to link a group
that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees," Cologne
Mayor Henriette Reker told reporters after a crisis meeting with police
Tuesday. Syria, Albania and Kosovo were the top three countries of
origin for asylum seekers in Germany last year.

Cem Ozdemir, a Green Party lawmaker of Turkish origin, described the attacks as "horrible and deeply misogynist."

"Women must feel safe everywhere, no matter where or when," he said.

Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers said no arrests have been made yet.

"We don't currently have any suspects, so we
don't know who the perpetrators were. All we know is that the police at
the scene perceived that it was mostly young men aged 18 to 35 from the
Arab or North African region," he said.

Albers urged witnesses to come forward,
especially if they had recorded videos of attacks. At least 90 criminal
complaints have been filed, including one allegation of rape, police
said.

Police said the attackers had gathered in
large numbers near the city's main train station, drinking alcohol,
releasing fireworks and mingling with other revelers.

Separately, police in the northern city of
Hamburg appealed for witnesses who observed similar sexual assaults and
thefts in the St. Pauli district on New Year's Eve.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the attacks should not be used to bolster an anti-refugee agenda.

"In criminal law, what's important is proving a
crime, and everyone is equal before the law. It doesn't matter where
someone comes from, it matters what they did and that we can prove it,"
Maas said.

On Tuesday evening, some 300 protesters
gathered near the site of the assaults in front of the Cologne
Cathedral, next to the train station. One woman held a hand-made placard
that read: "Mrs. Merkel, where are you? What do you say? This is
scary."

Merkel's office said the chancellor had called
Mayor Reker earlier in the day and "expressed her outrage about these
despicable assaults and sexual attacks, that demand a hard response by
the forces of law."

She also called for everything to be done "to
find the perpetrators as quickly and comprehensively as possible and to
punish them without regard to their origin or background," her office
said.

German authorities have regularly dismissed
the idea that the influx of refugees is leading to a disproportionate
rise in crime. At the same time, security officials have warned that
violence against asylum seekers has increased steeply over the past
year.

Federal police said Tuesday that they had
detained a 26-year-old man who was traveling to Cologne with a foot-long
meat cleaver in his pocket.

Police said the unidentified man told
officers: "I'm on the way to Cologne to get an idea of the sexual
assaults. I need the cleaver for that." The man was taken to a
psychiatric hospital.

Cologne, which was founded by the Romans
almost 2,000 years ago and is one of the most ethnically diverse cities
in Germany, plans to step up measures to prevent similar attacks during
the annual Carnival festivities next month, when alcohol-soaked street
parties are the norm.

"We will also have to explain our Carnival better to
people from other cultures, so that there's no confusion about the
cheerful behavior in Cologne that has nothing to do with candor,
especially candid sexuality," Reker said.